What is Studio Ghibli?
Founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki, Studio Ghibli is the most celebrated animation studio in Japan. Its origins go back to 1984, when Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind — produced outside Ghibli, at the Topcraft studio — proved that Japanese animation could win over the general public. That success was the impetus that led to founding the studio the following year. Since then, Ghibli has created timeless works loved by entire generations — among them My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. In 2003, Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, marking a turning point at which Japanese animation was recognized as an art form on a global scale.
The craftspeople who made Ghibli possible
And yet, no account of Ghibli would be complete without its invisible craftspeople. Kazuo Oga, the background artist who painted the forests of Totoro and the mountains of Mononoke; Michiyo Yasuda, responsible for the color palette of Laputa and Kiki; Yasuo Otsuka, who defined mechanical design across decades, from Lupin III to Ghibli's own productions. Their work remains hidden behind the final image, but it is the very foundation of what we recognize as Ghibli's unmistakable atmosphere.
The craft that made Ghibli unique
One of the qualities that define Ghibli's work is its insistence on hand-drawn expression in an era of digital production. The invisible craft behind the films — the composition, the effects and the visual engineering documented in Composite and Effect Works, and the architectural logic of world-building analyzed in Ghibli Architectural Buildings Art Works — is recorded here in its entirety.
The Complete Storyboard series
A storyboard is a director's blueprint — the place where every movement, cut, line of dialogue and moment of silence is first set down on paper. The Complete Storyboard series offers full reproductions of the storyboards of key works by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Following each page lets you discover how a film was conceived and where its fundamental decisions were made. An indispensable resource for film enthusiasts and for anyone interested in animation and visual storytelling.
The Image Board series
The Image Boards are a collection of sketches that Hayao Miyazaki drew before production of a film began. Created in the conceptual phase, before the story had taken its definitive form, these drawings contain ideas that never reached the finished work and visions that arose directly from the artist's imagination. Published by Iwanami Shoten, this series offers an exceptional glimpse of Miyazaki before the film became a film.
The Art of series
The Art of series, published by Tokuma Shoten, is the definitive collection of official art books for each Ghibli film — with art direction, background paintings, character design and color design. Opening these pages after watching a film, you begin to perceive the countless details present in every frame: a single tree, the texture of the cobblestones, the exact quality of the light. All of it was intentional. The most reliable point of entry into Ghibli's deeper world.
Discover more Ghibli
The art books gathered in this category are original Japanese editions, published mainly by Tokuma Shoten, Iwanami Shoten and Kodansha. Alongside the The Art of, Complete Storyboard and Image Board series, Kodansha's collected-works collection offers a unified view of Ghibli's entire filmography, and Bungeishunju's Cinema Comics series lets you relive each film through its dialogue and scenes. From Miyazaki's Daydream Notes and the official record of the Ghibli Museum to the art collections of associated artists such as Naohisa Inoue and Yasuo Otsuka, every title is a Japanese edition. There is still a Ghibli you haven't discovered.